It was a typical evening of cards at Gil’s house. Gil is the regular host of my local poker game and he does it spectacularly well. The game starts on time and ends on time (for those folks saddled with real j*bs). He’s got a great sound system and the tunes range from Massive Attack to George Jones; you don’t know what you’re going to hear, but you know it’s going to be good.
It’s $1-$1 No Limit Hold’em with two inviolate rules: (1) no discussing religion and (2) no discussing politics. We all know that such discussions can destroy a perfectly convivial poker game and any time the conversation strays in that direction, people are quick to put a stop to it. The game – the camaraderie – is far too important to threaten when a political debate turns personal.
Anyway, Gil’s game has been running for a few years and it’s not hard to see why. The people are wonderful, generous, and kind to each other. In my short tenure in the game, I’ve become close friends with a number of them; I count myself incredibly fortunate to settle into a chair in Gil’s basement once a week.
I had been up and down throughout the game. I got ahead a couple hundred fairly early, but then gave it back in a poorly played semi-bluff. Then, I managed to win back a couple of pots that got me back up about $100; that’s when the grocery hand broke out.
Tom, on my left, was dealing. A couple of people called the $1 blind. I raised to $4 with pocket eights – I thought it would get me the button and if I hit something, there would be a nice pot to win. Tom folded, as he should have, but I still ended up with three or four opponents. I slid my cards over to Tom so he could sweat along with me. I mean, the flop was coming K-Q-2 and I would be done with the hand anyway.
Tom is one of those dealers who puts the flop out one card at a time. The first card he put on the felt was an eight. So much for the “fold to the first bet” plan.
The bad news was that the next two cards were a nine and a jack. I might already be in trouble and with $300 to $400 stacks in front of many of us, this had the makings of the biggest pot of the night.
Chris, who had defended his blind, fired $26 into the pot. Odd bet – maybe 20% bigger than the pot. Parker, in middle position, called pretty quickly. Wow – things were getting interesting. I had no intention of letting a cheap straight card peel off the turn and I thought that either of them would have checked a flopped straight to me hoping that I’d continuation-bet it. On the other hand, I was not giving any cheap straight-making cards: “Buck and a quarter,” I said.
Chris immediately folded, which fascinated me. I meant to ask him later what he’d made that play with, but now Parker went into the tank. That’s when I noticed that he had only about $140 left in front of him. If he called here, the rest of the money was going in on the turn. It was clear he had a difficult decision; I was 100% sure that I was in front.
“I call,” he sighed. To avoid giving away anything, I looked directly at Parker as Tom put out the turn card. He looked at the card and shrugged. “I’m all-in.” Almost afraid to see what the card was, I glanced at the board. A queen. If Parker had made the call with an open-end straight draw, I now had ten outs. But his all-in was $40 and there was nearly $300 in the pot; behind or not, folding was not in my list of options. “Sure Parker, I call.” I turned up my eights and he winced. He had Q-J and had turned two pair.
The river did not bring Parker’s four-outer or a pot-splitting ten and I scooped an almost $400 pot. The game ended not too long after that and I left with a healthy profit.
I had to stop by the grocery store to get some staples – the weather was warning of a potent snowstorm moving in. As I walked into the nearly deserted store, I saw, near the registers, the barrel for the local food bank. Like so many food banks in our country, their donations are down and requests for assistance are up. People who used to contribute to the food bank are now going to it for groceries.
The donation barrel was empty.
I thought about that and Parker’s $100 call of my raise. My shopping plans changed. The front “kid carrier” part of the cart was all I needed for my items; I decided to fill the rest of the cart with non-perishables: Beans, rice, mac and cheese, powdered milk, healthy cereal, oatmeal, grits, peanut butter, and canned vegetables. This was fun.
I got to the cashier and asked him to ring up the front half of the cart separately for my tax receipt. As the total climbed on the register display and the front half of the cart was emptied, I started to chuckle; when he hit the “Total” key, I laughed out loud – it was $101.64. I had a put a soul-read on a grocery cart full of food.
The cashier and I rolled the cart over to the donation barrel. The last two bags we put in perched above its rim. Parker will be tickled when he reads this – he’ll be proud of where his money went.
I will certainly have the opportunity to make some bad semi-bluffs in Gil’s game in the future and there will be times when those six-outers come in against me. But last night, I turned a flopped set into a cart full of groceries for the Manna Food Bank. That’s +EV right there.
Lee Jones is the Card Room manager of Cake Poker and has been in the online poker business for over six years. He is also the author of “Winning Low Limit Hold’em,” which is still in publication over 15 years since its initial release.
